


The Voice in the Desert

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Love Poems, M/M, POV First Person, Poetry, Sestina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos reflects on his love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Voice in the Desert

Every night, I dream of love  
and every morning wake into a nightmare.  
I search for vibrations and frequencies. Will  
tuning into the right wavelength bring me your voice  
or merely lead me further into the desert?  
I look up and see nothing but the glow

of the lights above the Arby's. I look down and see the glow  
of your smile for me. What terrifying love  
forces cacti to bloom, brings rain to the desert,  
dispels for a moment this waking nightmare?  
What power in the mouth which shapes the voice  
that murmurs in all our ears, that will

hold our town together with force of will  
and a private smile lit by the glow  
of the "on-air" sign? Your sonorous voice  
telling all of Night Vale about your love  
for me is sort of a privacy nightmare,  
but my romantic life was a barren desert

before I moved to this uncanny desert  
town. Did some small part of me will  
this impossible place into being-- some forgotten nightmare,  
long ago demolished by the nightlight's glow?  
Was some corner of my soul so desperate for love  
that it conjured up this place and the voice

of my beloved Cecil-- the Voice  
of Night Vale-- surrounded on all sides by desert  
and monitored by the Sheriff's Secret Police, but willing to love  
regardless of all the eyes and ears on us-- the kind of will  
to love that makes the sky (mostly void, partially stars) glow  
and reassures me with soft words when I have a nightmare.

When I got here, I thought this place was a nightmare.  
I never thought that there would be a voice  
to murmur my name affectionately, a hand to hold beneath the glow  
of mystic lights, a man to walk beside through the desert,  
a heart to cherish in the darkness. I will  
tune my radio past the static to hear my love.

Somehow my nightmare turned into a dream of the desert.  
Will I be forever bewitched by the mysterious glow  
or will I find my love by the sound of his voice?

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't finished a sestina in two years, and this came pouring out of me in about an hour and a half. Don't look a gift muse in the mouth, I guess.


End file.
